


Home

by Lonov



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, House-Hunting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 20:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2164842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lonov/pseuds/Lonov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was on record that the Winter Soldier had visited New York City twelve times between 1944 and 2014, but Bucky didn't remember any of them. That was why, after some of the memories from his past life came back, he felt a relative stranger to the city he was born and raised in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> _"They say home is where your heart is set in stone,_  
>  _is where you go to rest your bones._  
>  _It's not just where you lay your head, it's not just where you make your bed._  
>  _As long as we're together, does it matter where we go?"_  
>  \- Gabrielle Alpin, "Home"

_**Brooklyn, New York** _

It was on record that the Winter Soldier had visited New York City twelve times between 1944 and 2014, but Bucky didn't remember any of them. That was why, after some of the memories from his past life—his real life, with his family and the Great Depression and always, always Steve—came back, he felt a relative stranger to the city he was born and raised in.

Brooklyn hadn't changed much physically, but everything from the way the New York skyline looked over the bridge to the way Brooklynites behaved now had him reeling. He grasped for any semblance of a connection between the love he used to feel for Brooklyn and the ambivalence he felt now.

All this did was replace his ambivalence with a strong sense of guilt.

"It isn't the same," Steve said, and Bucky almost sighed with relief at the knowledge that he wasn't the only one who felt distanced from his old life.

Just as the skyline wasn't the only thing that had changed about Brooklyn, physique wasn't the only thing that had changed about Bucky or Steve. Much like the city, they were now entirely different people.

In a nearby room of the brownstone they were touring, a middle-aged realtor was entertaining another couple. Bucky tried desperately to feel something toward this place, because Steve had brought him here looking for their first home, and Bucky didn't have enough gaps in his mind not to recognize how important this was for them.

But he felt nothing when he looked out the window to the city streets, nothing but a sense of wrongness in his gut that promised him he’ll never again be enough of James Buchanan Barnes to appreciate this place.

And yet, Bucky marveled as he watch a group of young children playing outside the window, Steve loved him anyway. Steve loved him as Bucky had been, as he was now, as he had been when he was the Winter Soldier.

Bucky was overcome with a sudden, desperate urge to leave the brownstone. It was too difficult to ponder what could have been. But he refused to rush Steve, who had waited years for Bucky to come back to him, and was giving Bucky all the time he needed to adjust to his life now. Their life together.

Tentatively, Bucky murmured, “Maybe we should...”

“Yes,” Steve nodded, and laced his hand through Bucky’s, “let’s go.”

As they walked away, Bucky studied the skyline of the city with intense eyes. There was a longing in his chest, but it wasn’t for Brooklyn.

 

_**Paramus, New Jersey** _

Bucky examined the grass at his feet, brilliant green and perfectly trimmed. It was too perfect; it looked fake. Nearby, a woman walked with a dog’s leash in one hand and a stroller in the other. Further down the road, a gaggle of teenagers laughed at something on their phones.

The neighborhood was the epitome of normal. Bucky wasn’t sure what to make of it.

"The suburbs don't change much," Steve said, eyes trailing over the line of identical houses on the sidewalk-lined street.

Bucky fitted his arm through Steve’s and reveled in the close contact. "At least now when you tell the army this is where you live, you won't be lying."

Steve’s lips quirked. "I'm sure the government is well aware of where I am, at any given moment, on any given day. Even Fury won't admit how many eyes they have on me." He sounded irritated. "That's the way they operate now, on fear instead of freedom."

"We missed a lot," Bucky said, curious eyes on the stroller as the woman walked past. “The whole world changed during the Cold War. Politics now... they don't even make sense. 'Your nukes are dangerous so we're gonna make our own nukes twice as dangerous, and somehow that'll fix the situation.'"

"You weren't awake for it?" Steve asked, in a soft tone that assured Bucky they could drop the conversation at any time.

There was a point where Bucky would have dropped it, when he was scared to tell Steve about the horrific things he remembered, afraid he would run away.

He was not afraid of that anymore.

"The Cold War? Even if I was... I couldn't tell you. Maybe I was awake for the whole thing. But if I was, I wasn't watching the news. I didn't know what year it was. Only the mission mattered."

Steve met his gaze silently for a long time. He was careful now to keep the hatred out of his expression when they talked about the Winter Soldier’s missions. It had taken Bucky a long time to realize that it was for Hydra, for how they manipulated Bucky into a dehumanized tool, and not for him. Never for him.

"We should go," Steve said. He looked disappointed at their lack of success. They’d been to more houses than Bucky could remember, and none of them had felt like home.

"What, you don't want to be a Stepford wife?"

Steve frowned at him.

"I've been doing my 21st century homework," Bucky said with a wry smile. "Mostly because I like knowing references you don't."

Steve pouted. "I hate you."

"You love me,” Bucky informed him, because he could believe that now. “But we both hate this place, so let's scram."

 

_**Washington, D.C.** _

After the helicarriers exploded, when Bucky had rescued Steve from the Potomac River, one of the first things he’d noticed was the soil. He'd felt that initial spark of connection to Steve and saved his life, but by the time he was dumping him on the riverbank he could hardly remember why. He certainly hadn’t worried about Steve, bleeding out onto the ground.

He couldn't empathize with human beings yet. He couldn't even understand his own emotions, because he had only felt fear and anger for so long, and so he ignored the humanity around him. When Bucky had first begun to separate himself from the Winter Soldier, it had been through his growing appreciation for nature—nature, silent and unassuming, which never asked questions and never gave orders. He had gravitated toward the trees and the soil. It had begun on the bank of the Potomac, the seedling of Bucky, growing from the Soldier.

Bucky's senses had been dulled. He had spent decades seeing the word in sharp detail but never stopping to appreciate the view. That brown soil was the first time he had recognized the colors around him.

"We could probably get a house built here," Steve said casually, though the river stank and the soil was dirty. It was far from prime real estate. "I bet if I throw enough money their way, the city would figure it out."

"I don't want to live on a riverbank, Steve," Bucky said, but he couldn't keep the fondness out of his voice.

Steve shrugged. "If you wanted to, we could. That's all I'm saying. You’re the one who brought us back here."

It was true. They had gotten in the car to go grocery shopping and somehow Bucky had made a four hour detour to Washington.

He just wanted to see if the soil was the same.

It was. Bucky wasn't.

"We could also look at an actual house in the city," Steve suggested. "Like normal people."

"Normal people?" Bucky scoffed.

"I know I'm strange-looking, Buck, but you don't have to say it like that."

Bucky laughed.

"We should see Sam, since we're already here," Steve said. "And then buy some groceries, because we never actually did that."

“I don’t,” Bucky began, and stopped. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought us all the way down here. I don’t know why I did. It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Steve said. He raised a hand to Buckys face. “You saved my life here. You started to—find yourself. This place, Bucky, it’s important to me.” He pulled Bucky into a slow, gentle kiss. “But it’s probably not ideal living arrangements.”

“It isn’t,” Bucky agreed with a tight laugh. “I know. We can go meet Sam now.”

They did.

 

_**Prairie County, Montana** _

"Steve," Bucky said, very seriously. "What’re we even doing here?"

They were on a ranch, and Bucky wasn't sure what to make of it. Flat land stretched on for as far as he could see. Twenty feet away, a horse was grazing.

This was his punishment for blindly following after Steve.

Steve watched the horse with a tiny smile. "According to Sam, middle America is still living in the 1950s," he admitted. "I thought maybe it would be like old times."

"Did Brooklyn have cattle in the fifties?" Bucky asked sarcastically.

"Um, no. I think he meant it more from a political standpoint."

"What, you brought us here to see if any guys will monkey us for being gay?" Bucky asked. "No, thanks. I don't remember the 50s, but if they were anything like the 30s, I'm not interested."

Steve wrinkled his nose.

Bucky narrowed his eyes. "Don't tell me you actually miss the 30s, Steve. We couldn't kiss without getting arrested."

"No, I know, it's not that," Steve explained. He gestured to the horses across the range. "It's just—the smell."

Bucky snickered. "Yeah, that's horse shit. If we're lucky we'll never experience it again. Come on, Captain Cowboy, let's go."

 

_**Le Sud de la France** _

The house was short and small, quaint in a way Bucky didn't have much respect for, but he could appreciate the wide expanse of land that stretched out in every direction. That was the reason Steve had chosen this house, then: he knew how much Bucky craved the freedom that came with open space, after living so much of his life trapped, physically and mentally, like a dog in a cage.

He couldn't imagine himself in these walls, though, with the simple vines tucked into the windows and flowers lining the walkway. They were removed from society, miles from the nearest store, and it was too much like being banished from the rest of civilization.

"I’m not sure this is the best choice," Bucky said, because he had never wanted to go to France. Not now, and especially not in 1942 when he had been drafted and shipped off to Europe.

Steve seemed more attached than Bucky felt. "This was the place I lost you during the war. And the place I found you, after,” he explained, and wrapped an arm around Bucky. "I thought I might feel something."

Bucky studied his face. "Do you?"

Steve sighed. "No," he said honestly. He turned to leave. "You're with me now, and I don't feel a damn thing about this place."

Bucky thought of the way his life had panned out, the way his fate had been mapped the moment he put on his uniform. Here was where he had come to fight, never knowing his own war had barely begun. Here was where he had come to die, only to spend the next seventy years as a ghost before being reborn.

Here was where Steve had found him after he’d shattered three helicarriers and almost drowned in the Potomac River. Here was where Bucky had finally allowed himself to be tracked down. Here—just north of here, just a short drive away—was where he had collapsed into the dirt, howling enough to make up for all those silent decades, while Steve held him and held him and held him until they both dissolved into thick, heavy tears.

But this place had nothing for them now. They were together, and they were different people.

Bucky followed Steve back to their rented car and murmurd, "I never want to see this fucking country again."

 

_**John F. Kennedy International Airport** _

The loudness of the airport put Bucky on edge, and Steve struggled to weave them in and around the hordes of people rushing to catch their flights. They’d caught a red-eye back from France, thinking the airport wouldn’t be packed when they arrived this early in the morning, but they’d been wrong; the baggage carousel was bustling with people, and Bucky pulled Steve to the back as they waited for the crowds to leave.

"You know," Steve said, tone too casual, leaning close to be heard over the snippets of French and English around them as they waited for their luggage. "You spent a lot of time over there. In Russia. Maybe if we went back—"

Bucky's jaw clenched. "Steve, don't."

"Sorry, Buck,” Steve said. “I'm sorry. I'm just trying to figure this out."

He said "this," which was very vague, but he meant "where we belong in a world made foreign to us by what we’ve been through," which was not.

Bucky understood. When he thought about how adamantly Steve was going against the odds to make a perfect life for them, his chest ached.

"We're patriots," he said lightly with a faint smirk. His body language assured Steve it was okay. They could talk about it now, his past life as the Soldier, but often they did not. They were both learning how difficult it was to move on with one foot in the past. "I can't be the guy who takes the America away from Captain America."

Steve smiled. His hand brushed against Bucky’s thigh in a way that was gentle and comforting and sent shivers up Bucky’s spine. "So no trips to Eastern Europe in the near future."

"No trips to Eastern Europe ever again in my life, pal."

"I thought,” Steve explained quietly, “maybe we could make some good memories there for you."

"I don't have too many bad ones," Bucky said honestly. "Memories aren't the problem. The lack of memories? I don't want those spaces filled."

Steve said, "Whatever you want.” He watched Bucky steadily, carefully, as if expecting a panic attack at any moment.

He didn’t need to worry. Bucky could understand where the idea had come from—Russia had been the Winter Soldier’s motherland for so long and it was still difficult, sometimes, for Bucky to differentiate who he was from who he used to be.

And he could brave Russia if Steve was with him; he could probably brave anything, anywhere in the world. The thing was, he didn’t have to. Steve understood.

There was no point struggling find the perfect home when any longing he felt for a normal life was diminished whenever he caught Steve’s gaze. They had already found homes in each other. The rest was insignificant.

 

**_New York, New York_ **

They stayed in a cheap motel near Harlem while they looked for the right house, and the more time they spent traveling to places they didn't really want to be, the more willing they were to ignore the uncomfortable bed and crumbling walls.

It was close enough to Brooklyn that they could visit their old neighborhood, but different enough that it didn't feel like they were trying to belong in spaces they no longer fit. For now, it suited them.

"I have no idea where we’re going next," Steve said, flipping through a book about the best homes in America. "None of these places seem right."

Bucky shrugged. There was no rush. "So we'll keep looking."

"We'll keep looking," Steve agreed, and clasped Bucky's hand in his own. He still looked at Bucky awestruck sometimes, like he couldn’t believe they were both really here. “I’m just so glad we’re together. It’s just—that’s enough for me.”

“Me, too, Steve,” Bucky said, squeezing his hand with careful metal fingers. “Me, too.”


End file.
